“Renfield” has fine, crafty actors in its corner. The reliable Nicolas Cage, a guy who always gives 110%, is in there, sprinkling delightful expressions of enthusiasm (“wooo!”) under his Dracula breath. Awkwafina plays an honest New Orleans cop amid a sea of corrupt, mobbed-up toadies, with her sharp instincts for both punchlines and heart-tugs. Throw in Nicholas Hoult as the title’s put-upon “familiar,” Renfield, and there you have it: the least lousy of the three recent Universal Pictures forays into wisecracking ultraviolence.
The earlier two in this particular movie cycle, “Violent Night” and “Cocaine Bear,” I kind of hated; the filmmaking wasn’t good enough to make sense of their heartwarming one minute, entrails the next approach to horror comedy. “Renfield” has a few laughs, at least. But if it were as much fun as its production stills, with Cage’s bejeweled and divinely decadent Dracula (he’s like a male Sally Bowles, with fangs) whooping it up with Hoult’s miserably exploited Renfield, we’d have the comic mayhem we deserve.
The idea here is that “Dracula” author Bram Stoker’s tasty side character, Renfield, who procures humans for their blood and for his master’s next meal, has had enough. What a way to make a living! Screenwriter Ryan Ridley introduces Renfield at a relationship support group where others discuss abusive husbands and manipulative partners. Renfield can relate, but he’s not ready to reveal just how difficult his last century has been, under the sway of his master.
“Renfield” brings these two to New Orleans, where the filmmaking tax incentives are irresistible. The script has a lot — far too much — to do with a powerful crime family’s manipulation of the cocaine market, along with most of the police department. Awkwafina plays an upright holdout against this corruption, whose father was killed by the criminal scum, and whose sister (Camille Chen, deserving of more) works for the FBI.
The crime story intermingles, bloodily, with the main story of how Renfield saves the cop’s life early on amid a brutal nightclub siege. All this is fine in theory. Some clever bits enliven the movie’s first third, including a flashback to how Dracula and Renfield met, depicted as black-and-white outtakes of a sort from Tod Browning’s 1931 Universal “Dracula.” The action takes over soon enough. And here is where plenty of other critics will give you different assessments of that action.
The massacres and decapitations and such are staged and photographed in a perpetual frenzy, with nervous geysers of blood, edited by three different editors with all six eyes on speed and none of them, apparently, with access to any medium-length takes. Filmmaking takes time and few films, or filmmakers, have enough of that time to map out anything of sustained visual interest. In “Renfield,” the look of the picture defaults to heavily saturated colors dressing up a series of drab interiors (church basem*nt, Renfield’s rental apartment), as the primary beats lurch from splatterfest to splatterfest. Only a motel killing spree — Hoult and Awkwafina vs. underworld goons — comes with a payoff, and only because Awkwafina is a stealth wizard, turning a passable zinger into gold.
Clearly, there’s an appetite for evisceration with a side of snark. Both “Violent Night” and “Cocaine Bear” did pretty well in theaters, at a precarious time for theaters in general. And “Renfield” — which is, at least, a somewhat novel way of reintroducing audiences to a chunk of underexploited IP in the Universal monsterverse — has the added advantage of three ringers at its performance apex. Also there’s Shohreh Aghdashloo purring her way through the cardboard part of the mob matriarch.
But the sour feeling I get watching larky bloodbaths like “Renfield” is not an isolated incident. Even in a film with a lot more going for it, delirious brutality can go south very quickly; I felt that way somewhere around the fifth skull-crush at the end of “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.” The adoring sadism to which Quentin Tarantino and two generations of imitators are hopelessly devoted — for some, they’re cinematic songs of love. But not for me.
“Renfield” fans and I can surely agree on one thing: the entertainment value of a pointy-toothed Cage, 35 years after “Vampire’s Kiss,” reporting once again for bloodsucking duty. He makes wonderful sense as Dracula; he’s fashion plate, dandy and co*ckeyed optimist all in one, out to conquer the world on his own terms. Mainly, Cage keeps finding the damnedest ways to topspin his line readings so that you never know where a sentence is going. May the next outing with Renfield and Dracula, should the public and Universal decree it, be a little funnier and little less too much.
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'RENFIELD'
2 stars (out of 4)
Rated: R (for bloody violence, some gore, language throughout and some drug use)
Running time: 1:33
How to watch: In theaters Friday
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FAQs
It is also given that almost every version of Renfield is just a tad bit queer coded. But when the Renfield to a head vampire bypasses the coding and is actually queer, is a nice reprieve. This is what the Renfieldesque character in 1985's vampire comedy, Once Bitten, provides us.
Is Renfield actually scary? ›
Parents need to know that Renfield is a comedy/action/horror movie about the relationship between vampire Dracula (Nicolas Cage) and his "familiar," Renfield (Nicholas Hoult). Violence is over the top and meant to be comical, with volcanic blood spurts, deaths and killings, limbs and flesh being ripped off,…
Was the movie Renfield any good? ›
Although it fails to take full advantage of its committed stars and killer premise, Renfield's batty horror-comedy blend sinks in just enough to leave an impression. You'll enjoy Renfield more if you're ready for a lot of campy humor -- but why else would you be watching a Nicolas Cage vampire movie?
Is Renfield very gory? ›
In the motel scene previously mentioned, officers are shot at, crushed, and have their limbs dismembered, which Reinfeld uses as weapons at one point. Also, one officer even has his face ripped off (gory detail). On top of all of this, people are shot at with large blood sprays. It is very gory.
What mental disorder does Renfield have Dracula? ›
Clinical vampirism, more commonly known as Renfield's syndrome, is an obsession with drinking blood. The earliest presentation of clinical vampirism in psychiatric literature was a psychoanalytic interpretation of two cases, contributed by Richard L. Vanden Bergh and John.
What does Renfield suffer from? ›
Renfield is an inmate at the lunatic asylum overseen by Dr. John Seward. He suffers from delusions which compel him to eat living creatures in the hope of obtaining their life-force for himself.
Why does Renfield betray Dracula? ›
Instead, he was constantly fed the empty promise of eternal life and used by Dracula to complete any and every task he placed before him. Eventually, this abuse made way for Renfield to regain his consciousness, which he used to save Mina Harker and defend himself against his master.
Is Renfield as strong as Dracula? ›
Granted, Renfield's strength is not as powerful as Dracula's, but he gets the job done given that he's far stronger and more agile than a regular human being.
How did Dracula become a vampire? ›
In Bram Stoker's original tale, it was never revealed precisely how he became the monster, although it was heavily implied through the research Van Helsing did into his past: when he was still alive, Dracula frequented “Scholomance”, a school of dark magic in Transylvania run by the Devil; it seems as though this was ...
Is Renfield more horror or comedy? ›
A take on Bram Stoker's legendary story of Dracula, the film fittingly focuses more on the Count's cursed familiar. Sadly, this means that actual bloodsucking is at a surprising minimum. Renfield emphasizes comedy a lot more than it does horror, with the latter aspect being almost non-existent.
Sources tell THR that the actor was paid $7 million to lead Massive Talent and received close to $3 million for Renfield for a supporting role.
Who kills Renfield in Dracula? ›
2 Renfield is killed by Dracula half way through the book. What role does Mina Harker play in Bram Stoker's Dracula (novel)?
Is Renfield bad? ›
Renfield makes a mess of its story at times, but does a good enough job getting gorgeously gruesome with its vampire action sequences to win us over with cartoonish gore – and Nicolas Cage's Dracula is one for the ages.
Can a 12 year old watch Renfield? ›
The blood and violence here is the real issue. If your teens want to see it, I highly advise for you to see it before your teens and make the better judgement. It's such an extremem blood, violent movie that you should question whether even yourself should be seeing it.
Can my 10 year old watch Renfield? ›
The MPAA rating has been assigned for “bloody violence, some gore, language throughout and some drug use.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes many scenes of people with super strength fighting and leaving a lot of spilled blood and body parts, a badly burned individual with scars and tissue regenerating over time ...
Is Renfield a love story? ›
So, naturally, he falls in love with a woman who just so happens to be a cop on a mission to take down a super vicious crime family, the Lobos, whose bloodlust might match Dracula's. The love story between Renfield (Nicholas Hoult) and Officer Rebecca (Awkwafina) is annoyingly half-hearted.
What is the queer interpretation of Dracula? ›
He seeks not partnership or romance, but a carnal connection. In this way, the character of Dracula embodies the desire that was so taboo to recognize in society at the time. This alone gives fodder for a queer reading of the text, as queer identities are often associated with hypersexuality in attempts to demonize.
What is the relationship between Dracula and Renfield? ›
Renfield Classic
He appears in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, which surprisingly enough was titled Dracula. He is a servant and a “familiar” to the Count and is devoted to him past the point of sanity. He's mentally unstable and survives on a diet of bugs that are provided to him by the Count.
Did Renfield come out? ›
Renfield had its world premiere at the Overlook Film Festival on March 30, 2023 and was released in US theaters on April 14, 2023, by Universal Pictures. The film was released on Blu-Ray and DVD in the US on June 6, 2023 and began streaming on Peaco*ck June 9.
